


something in the wind starts humming

by princerai



Series: reincarnation down by okkervil river [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe: Reincarnation, Gen, Hospitals, Magic number 7, Pre-Slash, Prequel, Tornadoes, Visions, Witch Loki, handwavey magic, young loki, young thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:58:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14839043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princerai/pseuds/princerai
Summary: Long before Thor and Loki knew their true selves, crumbs, clues were left on the trail for them to find in their youth.





	something in the wind starts humming

**Author's Note:**

> i really liked my witch au so i wrote more for it, as is done i guess. thor reminisces on the oddities that came of his and brendan's seventh birthday, because, you know, magic number seven. just as the last story went, loki's name was 'changed' in this life to brendan since not many americans are out naming their child loki. or thor really but work with me here. it's just for fun!

Thor would protest against the idea that seven is a lucky number. 

The day he turned seven, a storm descended upon their town— the kind that brings sickly green clouds. He remembers sitting at the window of their old home, watching his father stand on the porch in his red fluffy bathrobe. The wind shook his father where he stood, and yet, Thor recalls laughing, because he insisted on smoking his pipe anyway and mom never lets him bring that ugly thing in the house. 

Then came the lightning bolts that rippled through the air. The hailstones that knocked discordant beats upon their roof. 

Those ugly clouds spat out a long tube that wrapped around itself thousands and thousands of times over, til it touched the earth and _roared_. 

Thor can’t forget that sound. Not what it was on its own, but what rode as an undercurrent, like a bloody handprint staining the walls of a dark room that affirms your worst fears— the tinny shriek of a dozen bystanders, fading, fading, til the roaring cyclone devours their voices whole. 

He doesn’t remember much of being seven years old. But he remembers that. 

And he remembers his father sweeping through the living room, shouting at his mother, and Brendan screaming in her arms, kicking his blanket away. He was young then but even toddlers— perhaps especially toddlers— know when the air has gone _wrong_. 

For some reason Thor hangs onto the tiny details the best here, the ones that don’t matter to anybody but a newly seven year old mind. 

Branches scratching the sides of the house, nails down rock and brick, desperation. 

A spot of wet upon the carpet, where the window he was sat at only a moment before, glass shards sparkling under a lightning gaze. 

The basement door slamming, the crash back into its frame drowned in the ever approaching roar. 

Loki’s fat little hand curling in his own. 

The house groaned, trembled around them. Thor sat in his mother’s lap, and Loki in his, and their father hovered near, head whipping around to follow the chaotic sound above. 

Thor remembers closing his eyes—

(And that part is the strangest for him, because he remembers being sick even then, but he still had both eyes at the time, and perhaps his priorities are mixed up here if that’s what makes him give pause with this memory but—)

And he opened them. 

And he was above ground, in the open air, but, wait, they skipped a part, they never left the house—

There were walls and then there were no walls and, no, none of it made sense, there were chairs left seemingly untouched but the heavy leather couch is just _gone_ and where the window stood was just— a hole. 

He was in his mother’s arms still. Too old to be held like this. 

Too young yet to see his own mother weep. 

She didn’t cry, not really. The tears just fell, like she didn’t really realize that there were tears at all. 

Loki was quiet in his arms, doll-like. His eyes were bright blue in the flashing lightning, bolts chasing down after the retreating cyclone. 

 

Thor couldn’t give more than implications of homes after that. Exact stories, how long he spent in those houses? Impossible. The years have eroded those times down to a foundation for newer memories, of happier, more certain times. 

What he does have is the musty cigar stench of his uncle H’s guest room. The shape of his brother’s body curled to his in a bed that might have been his father’s in another lifetime. His uncle’s hand lying protective upon his back as yet another cashier questions how they’re related, and Thor was too young yet to understand the odd stares were because of their differing skin. 

And eventually, a new home appeared, drawn from their father’s deep pocket. 

They fell into that home like the old one never existed— Thor remembers being relieved to have his own room, only to immediately invite Loki inside the first night he was faced with a nightmare. 

(And now Thor wonders, if it had to happen that way, that they had to be torn from their roots and replanted somewhere that magic rises from the earth in ribbon-like waves, where it sparkles above his bed at night and invites him to dreams of a land long behind him— and a land he will return to, someday, in another life.)

And many, many days later— although, as he stands older now, wiser, he knows it is not all that many days in the grand scheme of their lives— 

This one comes painted in brighter colors, bearing an outline that boasts of its certainty; a clearer memory, closer to now. 

He sat at his brother’s side, his arm looped around those skinny shoulders. Thor heard his own cracking voice, raised in song, and—

(no. his father wasn’t here for this one.)

Their mother’s teeth gleamed white, and she sang too, looking fit to burst with pride. 

Brendan’s short legs wagged in the air, kicking back against his chair. Even in a room illuminated only by candlelight, anybody could see he was lapping up the attention, practically swelling with it. 

Their song ended, and Brendan blew out the seven candles of his own birthday cake, casting the dining room into darkness. 

And the room filled with his screams. 

His body went rigid against Thor, all tight muscles and bolt straight bones. He heard their mother scrambling to flick on the lights but Thor only had eyes for Brendan then, as he shook him, begged him to stop screaming and just _tell him what’s wrong_. 

The ceiling light switched on, blinding Thor— and Brendan fell silent. 

He laid against Thor’s side, breathing shallow. His eyes were lidded, pupils blown and unseeing. 

Their mother was on the phone— and it gets rough here for Thor. 

He can hear sirens piercing through the lull of a listless Sunday afternoon. Red beams piercing the fog from the previous evening storm. 

Brendan on a rattling bed. Dad appearing, seemingly from thin air, roaring that they let both his sons on that ambulance so help you—

“Brendan, c’mon, look at me—“

Thor could see his own hands wrapping around Brendan’s, urging his attention away from the IV needle sliding into his arm. 

Those huge pupils fixed upon Thor and he knew, he knew his little brother saw him and nothing else in that moment. 

Brendan’s voice was far, far away. 

“Is that my name?”

Thor forgot how to breathe. 

Sterility. Rubbery stench of latex. Beeping. Tubes. Strangers wearing worry lines into their faces. 

Brendan was taken immediately at their father’s insistence. Huffing, puffing, threatening of the staff’s livelihood, maybe a flash of cash— sooner than later Brendan had a new bag of saline emptying into his veins and he shivered beneath Thor’s gentle hands. 

“He just went... tense—“

“—sick on the ambulance...”

“Does the child have a history of fits?”

“—never had a seizure before—“

“And his brother said he couldn’t remember his name.”

A thick blue curtain cast a shadow over them both. Though Thor saw his parents’ feet beneath it, he and his brother may have been left all alone in the world, fending for their lives in these white walls. 

Thor remembers deciding then and there if he and Brendan were truly alone, he would watch over him to his last. 

Thor wonders how someone young as he was could have such desperate thoughts. 

“Brendan?”

His brother rested easy in that hospital bed. His eyes were his own again, just— tired. Deep and tired. 

“Is that your name again?”

Brendan nodded. 

“What did that mean? Do you remember saying...”

His brother stared into space. He looked fit to fall asleep any second, head lolling off to the side. 

“I dunno. I was dreaming a lot.”

“I don’t understand. You were awake. You looked at me.”

Brendan’s fingers brushed over where the IV entered his arm. Thor half expected he would rip it out, but where would he go?

“I saw you, but you looked weird.”

“Weird?”

“You were electric. There were gold houses.”

Electric. 

Thor remembers static, clingy blankets, his fingers tangling in the fabric to squeeze his brother’s leg. 

The little hand in his own brushed a constant pattern into his palm. 

He was tracing the letter L into his palm, Thor knew that now. 

And in a way, he supposes, seven can still be lucky— that storm, that first golden vision, it was necessary, it was a first clumsy huge step forward that landed them both facedown and bleeding from the nose. 

Thor is still glad to see those birthdays are long behind them.


End file.
